The present invention relates to a printer which is capable of adjusting the spacing between a print head and the face of a print sheet, end more particularly to an improvement in which the spacing adjusting position can freely be selected.
Various printers have been proposed which have spacing adjusting means for adjusting the spacing between a print head and the face of a print sheet. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publications Nos. 60-18377 and 62-187065 propose such printers. In these known printers, the spacing can be adjusted depending on the sheet used and the adjustment of the spacing is achieved by moving the print head toward and away from a platen of the printer. However, the spacing adjusting position is fixed irrespective of the kind of the sheet used, and therefore, the following drawbacks have been noted.
A sheet with tab labels attached has an irregular thickness, since it is thicker where these tab labels are present and thinner where no tab labels are present. Therefore, the face of the sheet is irregular in the transverse direction of the sheet, i.e., in the longitudinal direction of the platen. If this sheet is used in the printer, the spacing between the print head and the face of the print sheet has to be adjusted with respect to one of the tab labels which is to be printed. To adjust the spacing between the print head and this sheet, the operator is required to stop the print head at one of these tab labels. The procedure to stop the print head at a tab label has been very tedious and time-consuming.